Male Figure in Turning, Downcast Posture

Origin: Tabwa Tribe, D.R. Congo
Composition: wood, pigment

Tabwa art developed over a fairly short period during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Sculpture reflected more on great families than on leaders. Tabwa lineage elders kept small wooden images (such as this piece) to represent and honor ancestor spirits, great healers, and occasionally earth spirits.

This figure displays elaborate scarification in a single row down the center of the back, and chevrons and squares on the face. Such adornment was aesthetically pleasing and served an erotic role, but also served as visual metaphors that implied positive social values and the harmony of natural forces.

The Tabwa refer to wooden figures as mikisi, a term simultaneously meaning "spirit" and "divine power." This twisting, leaning figure is unlike most other Tabwa carvings, which are upright and formal, but shares the elegance and peacefulness for which Tabwa figures are so highly renowned. This piece was probably used for divination purposes, as the shapes and forms of Tabwa divination objects were created only after they appeared to a Tabwa diviner in a dream. The downcast posture of this piece is what makes it so completely unique—such a pose is not only unknown in Tabwa art, but it is practically absent from art from the whole of Africa.

The Tabwa, who live in regions adjacent to the Luba, have no unified history, and the relationships of the many people who claim to be Tabwa are complex. One shared characteristic is that none developed central states—local chiefs merely led the community but had no ultimate authority over any individual (Ref: Phillips, "Africa: The Art of a Continent"; Visona, "A History of Art in Africa").

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